Israel Will Try Eleven Border Policemen in Curfew Killing of Arabs

December 17, 1956

JERUSALEM (Dec. 16)

Eleven Israeli border policemen, including two officers, will go on trial next month on charges growing out of the Kfar Kassem incident of October 29 when 48 Arab civilians were killed for violation of the wartime curfew. The border policemen fired at the 48 when the latter were returning to their homes from the fields after the curfew hour.

The indicted policemen will face military tribunals in three groups. Prominent Israeli lawyers have volunteered to act as defense counsel.

(At the United Nations, over the week-end, the chairmen of the 11 Arab delegations visited Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and registered a complaint against the Kfar Kassem incident, calling it “genocide.” The Arabs also complained to the President of the General Assembly, Prince Wan Waithaykon.

(A spokesman for the Israel delegation, commenting on the Arab complaint, pointed out that the Israel Parliament had formally expressed the government’s and the Israel people’s profound distress-over this terrible tragedy.)”